Saturday & Sundry Shorter Religions

From QUORA


"What are TL;DRs for some religions?"
(TL;DR = too long;did not read.)

I guess, really, the questioner was asking: what are shorter definitions/explanations of some religions. But what do I know ? In acronym-laden cyberland much is taken for granted!

Barry Goldberg's great answer (and I trust he will not object to my borrowing it):

Barry Goldberg, Born Jewish, Raised Mormon, Discovered Philosophy and Became Atheist.[With a VERY large grain of salt and tongue firmly planted in cheek] ----

Judaism: People hate us because we’re God’s chosen people, and what God apparently chose us for is to be hated by everybody else.

Catholicism: God sacrificed Himself to Himself to appease Himself in order to save us from Himself.

Islam: We are the Religion of Peace™ and we will totally kill anybody who says otherwise.

Sikhism: We wear turbans and carry ceremonial swords and no, we are not Muslims!

Hinduism: Don’t eat meat; that cow could be your great-grandfather.

Buddhism: We’re a religion, but we don’t believe in God. Psyche!

Mormonism: “As Man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”

Born Again Christians: “I know because I know because I know. Oh — and everybody else is going to burn in hell forever and ever!”

Jehovah’s Witnesses: We may believe some crazy stuff and be annoying as all get out, but at least we’re not as bad as Scientologists!

Universal Unitarianism: We don’t actually believe anything in particular, but we love to dress the part.

[Bonus joke: What do you get if you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Universal Unitarian? Somebody who knocks on your door for no particular reason.]

Even more!

Lutherans: We’re just like Catholics, except grumpier.

Anglican/Church of England: We’re just like Catholics, except we can get divorced.

Episcopalians: We’re just like the Church of England, but without the posh accent.

Wicca: We recently decided to call ourselves witches and now claim the right to define what the word “witch” has meant throughout all of recorded history.

Shakers: We enforce celibacy for everybody. And now there’s only two of us left. Seriously. I am not making this up.

Satanists: Baby-eating practitioners of the dark arts, or just a parody religion to poke fun at Christianity? We’ll never tell! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Pastafarianism: OK, we really are just a parody religion to poke fun at Christianity. All hail the Spaghetti Monster, praise be His Noodly Appendages, Ramen!

Zoroastrianism: You know that cool music at the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey” called Also Sprach Zarathustra? That’s us, Baby!

Scientology: Trillions of years ago the evil galactic overlord Xenu flew a bunch of aliens to earth in Boeing 747s and blew them up with hydrogen bombs inside volcanoes and… Never mind, just give us all your money!

Young Earth Creationism: Our minds are made up, don’t confuse us with the facts!

And finally…

Atheism: “We’re not a religion, damn it!”

"The Golden Compass" reflects Pluto in Capricorn

We saw the movie "The Golden Compass" on Friday evening. After publicity indicating that the film is "anti-religion", we doubted that our local movie theater would be showing it - so were pleasantly surprised. I guessed the film wouldn't be as controversial as was publicised, and I was right. But there is a message in the film which fits with Pluto's imminent move into Capricorn, touched on here yesterday.

"The Golden Compass" movie is an adaptation of the first book of a trilogy, "His Dark Materials", by British author, Philip Pullman. In Britain the first book of the trilogy had the title "Northern Lights", but for some reason in the US it's called "The Golden Compass".

From information gleaned via Google, it appears that the books do have a more overtly anti-religious message than this movie, and one which grows more insistent as the trilogy moves along. In the movie, the plot seems to have been considerably diluted, and unless one has read the books, it would be hard to detect any message that is specifically anti-religion.

I went with an open mind, and came away with an anti-establishment, anti-brain-washing, pro-freedom message rather than one of anti-religion. I got a feel more akin to that of "V for Vendetta", albeit with a more fantastical backdrop and spectacular special effects.

"The Golden Compass" will probably offer different messages to different viewers, but all with a theme of individual efforts to break down tyranny, dominance of institutions, and restriction of human freedoms. These are all aspects of Pluto in Capricorn - plain as day!

A movie review which I particularly liked for its fairness and insight is at Sprituality and Practice. It gives away much of the plot though, so anyone planning to see the film is warned!

The review ends: "We wish her (the heroine) well and hope that youth will take this movie to heart, especially its call to be wary of all institutions that stifle the soul and try to limit the spiritual search for truth."

I'll confess that my primary reason for wanting to see this movie was that Sam Elliott is in it. It turned out that Sam Elliott, as a come-on, introduced me to a fascinating tale. I'll be watching for the almost inevitable sequel, with relish.